UK Economy To Outstrip Other G7 Nations

I don't agree with some of Gordon Brown's actions and prospective policies - I'm expecially not impressed by his complacency over Blair lying the UK into the Iraq war, where second-in-command Brown was clearly sidelined but equally as clearly decided to put power before principle and not resign in protest.

Still, he's done pretty well for a guy from my hometown back in the UK. He's now presided over more years of economic growth than any other British chancellor.

From the London Times:

Britain will be the fastest-growing major advanced economy in the world this year, according to draft forecasts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) leaked last night.

In a boost to Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, as he puts the finishing touches to next week’s Budget, the IMF predicted that Britain’s GDP would grow 2.9 per cent this year, faster than any other country in the Group of Seven advanced economies. Separately, the CBI, the business group, also upgraded its forecast to predict 2.9 per cent growth this year.

Britain’s economy will slow to 2.7 per cent next year, the IMF data showed. The figures were obtained by Reuters ahead of the publication of the IMF’s World Economic Outlook in April. The IMF declined to comment.

The figures reinforced the picture painted earlier this week by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development of a world economy whose growth would slow but remain robust this year, as Europe and Japan pick up the slack from a US slow-down. World growth was tipped to slow to 4.9 per cent in 2007 and 2008 after its strong 5.3 per cent growth last year.

The IMF cut its forecast for US growth this year to 2.6 per cent, from 2.9 per cent in September, but said that growth would pick up to 3 per cent next year.

It revised up its projection for growth in the eurozone, to 2.3 per cent this year and next. China’s GDP was seen as expanding by 10 per cent this year and 9.5 per cent in 2008.

The Chancellor received a second positive forecast yesterday from the CBI, which predicted that consumer spending would pick up this year and that business investment would also grow strongly. It forecast that interest rates would have to rise one more time, to 5.5 per cent, in the coming months and were then likely to stay on hold until the end of 2008.

Not bad at all Gordon, and imagine the American shock when they figure out you're a socialist!

Here's the thing - European democratic socialism put Marx on the bookshelf of history a few decades back, but because American politicians have always managed to make voting hay out of a McCarthyist throwback fear of the dreaded reds, it went mostly unnoticed in the US. Truth is, socialists are just fine with capitalism nowadays, they just want money to serve the people rather than vice versa.

If the US could only get up to date, it could actually have the best man for the job as President, but unfortunately because of this out-dated, irrational and incorrect view of socialists he would be unelectable right now.